Benefits of Rapid Application Development

Understand the importance of custom applications in accelerating digital transformation. A step-by-step approach that recognizes the role of people, process and technology to deliver successful transformation.

The advent of social, mobile and cloud has placed unprecedented demands on the delivery of business applications. According to an HBR study, one in six projects hahas cost overrun of 200% and a schedule overrun of almost 70%. Meanwhile, a Geneca survey revealed that 75% of the business and IT executives anticipate their software projects will fail. These statistics only confirm the challenges of conventional software development faced by enterprise IT and business users alike. Consequently, leading companies such are now evaluating modern RAD platforms to reduce the friction points in delivering successful enterprise applications. Here are some of the major benefits of RAD:

Align business and IT to overcome rework weariness

The Geneca study mentioned earlier also found that 80% IT professionals admit that they spend at least half their time on rework. The primary reason is that business and IT exert discrete spheres of influence at the various stages of application delivery. While business drives the requirement analysis and production phases, IT drives the development and QA phases of the traditional software development life cycle. The business-IT gap can be bridged by creating an engaging environment at every stage of application delivery. Rapid Application Development simplifies the application development process such that technical business users can work together with professional developers in developing the application. This greatly benefits enterprises as business users with domain knowledge can validate the implementation as it is being developed. Consequently, rework is greatly reduced and cost overrun is avoid to a large extent.

Fast-forward delivery by reducing waste and cycle times

The linear approach of conventional software development models presents significant opportunities to reduce waste and fast-forward delivery. Using the value chains technique to analyze software delivery, it can be found that wait times, handoffs, task switching and defects contribute to the cycle times. The reasons can range from securing sign-offs to waiting for environment setup. Rapid Application Development tools that offer visual development, instant testing and deployment have helped many organizations achieve substantial reduction in waste, thereby speeding up application delivery.

Enable enterprises to build the ideal innovation pyramid

Until now, organizations have looked at the benefits of RAD only at the application level. However, Rapid Application Development benefits are even greater at the enterprise IT portfolio level. To understand that, you need to look at enterprise application from the lens of their rate of change, as explained by Gartner in their Pace-Layered Application Strategy. Basically, Gartner has defined three application categories, or “layers,” to distinguish application types based on their rate of change. A closer examination reveal that these layers also denote the proportion of focus and budget traditionally accorded by enterprises. However, competitive advantage lies with companies that focus the most on the top tier, the ‘Systems of Innovation’. RAD tools are ideal for such systems that require the most experimentation and experience the highest rate of change. Hence, organizations have turned to Rapid Application Development to build their innovation pyramid by laying the most emphasis on ‘Systems of Innovation’.

Respond to transforming technologies and expectations

Device proliferation and consumerization of IT has led to rising end-user expectations from today’s applications. Enterprises have come to expect speed, agility and scalability at the lowest possible TCO. Meanwhile, an explosion of APIs and front-end technologies has multiplied the technological burden on developers to deal with the smorgasbord of front-end technologies and devices. Using Rapid Application Development, organizations can stay on top of these changes by delivering applications at the speed of business.

Impact of Rapid Application Development on cost and schedule

The benefits of Rapid Application Development have a direct bearing on the cost and schedule of enterprise application development. In fact, organizations that used WaveMaker RAD Platform have experienced: